On the 12th of September, in Mykolaiv, took place the Rotary Business Forum organized by the District Ukraine 2232, dedicated to the economic perspectives of the territories of Southern Ukraine, particularly affected by the war. Our Editor-in-Chief Ugo Poletti made an interview about this event with the Artem Vashchylenko, Executive Director of the Ukrainian Association of Business Support Centers (UABSC) and past president of Rotary Club Mykolaiv.
Rotary is known for its charity activities, but today’s event’s topic is business. Please. explain why Rotary is dealing with business and with the economic development.
There are several inspirations inside Rotary to also take care about the business. First of all, Rotary initially was a community which united the representatives of business and also other professionals. So, in the Rotary roots, the business already exists and business is the main source for each of us. The main source of the money which we are eager to invest in our service. So, it's very important also for Rotarians who are involved in business to be sustainable, effective, competitive, to have more resources to spend, to invest in Rotarian activities from one hand.
From another hand, Rotary is a community. So, we like to help each other, and this community spirit is important for the business because this is a networking activity. This is a building up of the relations. This is a starting of new projects. So that's why it's also part of natural activities within Rotary to take care of the economic development and the economic recovery of the communities.
It's also part of the humanitarian action. So, we are working to support our communities, where we live, where we serve, to be more economically effective, to be more sustainable. And for the communities in Ukraine, particular the regions suffering during the war, it's important to have the support on economical recovery. So this is the focus of the project we are discussing. So, for me it's absolutely logical and clear that Rotary in its meaning has the economic support of its territory and support to the businesses.
From the left: Frédéric Panier, Olga Paliychuk (Rotary District Governor), Ugo Poletti, Artem Vashchylenko.
And what about the title of this conference? It is focused on the territories affected by the war. So, what was the purpose, the objectives of the conference?
So, the idea behind was to discuss the best practices already existed in the Rotary community in Ukraine, which is providing a professional support to the communities, since the beginning of war. Some of us came to that service as part of their everyday activities.
Some colleagues were already working on humanitarian support. They saw the need of economic support by the communities, in order to cover not only their basic needs, but also to support them in further development. So, we met to explore the existing practices, to see the expertise we do have within the Ukrainian Rotary community. And also to design some pilot initiatives which could be first of all implemented and then multiplied in other communities around the south and the Eastern part of Ukraine.
Once again, the regions and the communities are strongly affected by the war. That’s why we think here is the priority. We also were discussing our homework as the Ukrainians, as an active part of the Ukrainian society in preparing Ukraine to implementing the different types of recovery projects. Smaller scale, bigger scale. But we have to prepare ourselves from professional point of view, legal point of view. And also, for me it's a discussion and a sharing of ideas based on the same values.
Is there something particularly interesting that you learned from this different topics and debate, something that you think it was very valuable to be heard?
First of all, I love the honesty of your presentation about “Ukrainians’ homework for a successful recovery,” because for us it's very important to have polite suggestions by foreigners. What we have to do is to improve ourselves in front of international partners and to make Ukraine also better understood by our partners, and work on either the internal, or the external image.
But you know, not only the facade, we should also do this improvement inside ourselves and Rotary. This is absolutely the right community because we as Rotarians have this value: service above ourselves. And the people who gather today in this venue, they share the cases and how they were implemented in the field of economic development and economic recovery.
Therefore, I like the idea to focus more on economic development rather than let's say just pure humanitarian support. We don't want our communities to be depending just on humanitarian deliveries. We want them to step by step move towards recovery building, supporting them to build inside each community their eagerness and readiness to create their economic development. We want to teach, to educate the active part of the community and also, we want to be able to hear from them, and show them Rotary as an example of such community, which works globally in this field.
From the left: Ugo Poletti, Artem Vashchylenko.
